Care Home Poem by Tom Billsborough

They wait and wait and wait,
The nearly dead,
Mostly slumped in chairs asleep,
Whilst those awake are deep
Within the drowning process
Of their fate
in the grey sea of boredom that surrounds.

They wonder why they're there at all,
These castaways
In a care home without care.
Some stare at the TV mounted on the wall
Where endless films
You wouldn't pay a dime for
Reel out their trivial acts,
The sound too low to follow.

She ticks and ticks and ticks,
The nurse now at her desk,
In the furthest corner of the room.
It is her doom to fill in forms
Which authority requires
To give assurance that the quality of care
Is adequate, Life reduced
To page, on page, on page
Of self-deceptive narrative.

Some warders take advantage
Of a shed outside
To smoke, and joke and talk,
And gain relief from the gnawing sense
That they too are bound
Within this island of despair.

Badly paid, they work long hours,
Yet some are still inspired
To stir the inmates
With a game or two, or quiz,
Or gentle exercise.
But to be fair
The response is tepid
As the tea they serve at intervals.
Visitors are rare
The sense of true abandonment
Seeps into every bone
And chills the soul.